LIKE Councillor Ann Norman, we make most of our left-over food into soup (Letters, June 27), but there is some food waste which does not make good soup such as banana skins, which I compost.

I have found a way to avoid rats.

I have two green plastic dustbins. I fill one of them with food waste and small quantities of paper. By the time I have filled the second dustbin in the same way, the contents of the first bin are so rotten that rats would not touch it.

When I turn my compost heap, I bury the contents of the first dustbin under the garden waste.

I sprinkle sulphate of ammonia into the dustbins and on to the compost heap to speed the rotting process.

I have not had any rats in my garden for many years since using this method.

Adrian Montford, Clermont Road, Brighton